challenge question was c, there are 19 billion chickens on the planet according to the united nations. the nation with the highest chicken to human ratio is bahrain, approximately 40 chickens per person. i wonder how they figure this stuff out. go to our website for more. thanks for being part of my program this week. program this week. i will see you next week. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com most reporters are working overtime on this steamy washington weekend covering the scramble to avoid a government default just two days from now. with reports of a possible deal this morning after so much partisan sniping yesterday, how do the media keep up with all the back room maneuvering? how badly is the press being spun by the white house and the republicans? are journalists so immersed in the short-term politics that they're losing the sight of the

impact of trillions. blogger jeff jarvis stirs up a storm by hurling an obscenity. the reporter whose story prompted david wu to resign over a sex scandal. should he have relied on unnamed sources? i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." it would be comical if it weren't so serious. washingtonality its worst as all of us in the news business trying to keep up with a story that changes by the hour. the senate scheduled to vote today at 1:00 p.m. to avoid a crippling default. look at the rolling news coverage suggests one inescapable conclusion, we often aren't sure what's going on either the countdown continues, american anger and anxiety keep building as the politicians let another day go by without a deal

on the flash debt. >> it is one week and counting to august 2nd, the day the president says the government will run out of money and, among other things, will have to stop sending out social security checks. >> we are not yet in the end game. we are still in the bluff stage of the negotiations. >> tonight, do you know who said this? >> get your ass in line. >> maybe a vote in the house of representatives tonight as part of the effort to fix the debt ceiling, but it probably won't fix anything. >> can president obama find a way to bypass congress if america starts running out of money on tuesday? >> house speaker john boehner planned to pass his solution last night, but all his tough talk and back office bullying couldn't get the vote. >> the house just approved john boehner's bill to raise the debt ceiling, it was a narrow party line vote. >> the boehner bill has just gone down. it's just been defeated in the senate. >> yesterday mitch mcconnell said he was optimistic about a deal. harry reid, the democratic

leader said mcconnell wasn't negotiating in good faith. now mcconnell is sounding more optimistic this morning, an administration official saying there could be a deal today. joining us to examine the round the clock coverage, jonathan martin from politico, michael shear who coffers the white house for "the new york times" and nancy cordes, congressional correspondent for cbs news. nancy cordes, can you do anymore than play catch up in a story that is so dizzying that it seems like every 15 minutes if you're away from your computer, you miss something. >> it's very challenging because often even the leaders don't know what's going on. they think there have been no discussions only to find out that discussions had been going on, but just without them. as the stakes have gotten higher and higher, not only have aides tried to spin us, they have out and outlined to us from time to time. >> what's an example of that? >> well, you know, a couple days ago when the boehner bill was on the floor in the house and they were really working hard to

wrangle these conservative house members, i can't tell you how many aides i had saying right up until the minute the vote was going to take place, we've got the votes, don't worry, this bill is going to pass. they kept saying that until, guess what? they had to pull the bill from the floor because they didn't have anywhere near the votes. >> the check is in the mail. jonathan martin, spinning, lying, something in between. how intensively are you being lobbied and cajoled by both sides? part of this is the blame game, it's the other guys who won't negotiate in good faith. >> that's what frustrates the american people so much. up until now so much of it has been posturing, framing the issue as to who can get a deal and who can't. >> how do you as a reporter cut through the posturing? >> you have to look at what is happening behind the scenes, not what they're saying at press conferences. the press conferences oftentimes are a bit of theater more they

are anything actually indicative of what's happening. what's really going on is cut behind the scenes as we found out last night when lo and behold we hear mcconnell is talking about obama and biden. that's where the actual deal is being cut. >> before my question to you, michael shear, what kind of hours have you been working? >> i think it's been crazy for all of us. i mentioned to you before the show, i had my overnight bag packed when i walked into the capitol last night because we thought there was going to be a 1:00 a.m. vote. that turned out not to be the case. >> you went to bed early instead? >> well, not exactly. >> michael and i saw each other as we were leaving the capitol at midnight and both said to each other should we leave or could something else happen? >> exactly. as we all try to piece together what is happening behind closed doors, aren't we having to rely, and this maybe is true in covering the white house as well, on sources who don't want their names attached and, therefore, maybe have a little more leeway to spin? >> absolutely.

there's a fine line between when we all use these anonymous sources, we don't want to use them, we want everybody to be as transparent as possible. the real news isn't what's happening out front. there was a moment last night where a leadership aide, a republican leadership aide had come out. we were all trying to figure out was there going to be a vote at 1:00 a.m.? was there not? the aide said, you know, in these kind of things i like to add 12 hours to kind of buffer things. couldn't say who that was. but it gives everybody a sense of what's really happening. >> it's so sensitive that a lot of the conversations that i have, at least, are assumed to be on background. we're at a point now where they don't want their names or even their bosses attached to the information. the bargain is, i will tell you what's happening here behind the scenes, how it looks. but you can't give me up. >> is that a good bargain because you're not able to tell readers, give readers a good idea of where this information

or sometimes spin is coming from? >> the only thing we have right now. >> you have no only shun. let me come to something i raised at the top of the program. we toss these numbers around. it's up to $2.8 trillion. those are real cutbacks in programs that affect real americans. i wonder if you think the details are being lost because we don't have time to go into it and we don't know often what is in the bills. >> that's been a very frustrating feature of the whole deb based. we're told the biden group worked out a trillion in cuts. what are the cuts? we can't tell you. that really matters to americans. are these $1 trillion on things that we weren't really interested in purchasing anything, or is this $1 trillion from medicare? where is the money coming from. >> part of the frustration for reporters, the people we go to, they don't necessarily know either because it's really this handful of people who are negotiating. >> one person's $1 trillion is

another person's $2.4 trillion. it depends on are you including interest revenue in that equation. >> what's the baseline, savings? >> it's not paper, too. it's all verbal. >> which is like trying to nail some kind of fog to the wall. does this remind you of a campaign where the clock is ticking toward the ultimate day and policy seems to take a back seat to politics? >> yeah. it does. it's more similar to what happened with t.a.r.p. in the fall of 2008, especially in the last few days it's become so similar to that. a lot of folks whispering we're not sure we can get the votes until we have a market reaction, which is a euphemism for a severe plummet in the dow. that's pretty scary stuff. >> front page story in your newspaper, michael shear "rightward tilt leaves obama with party shift." cuts and no tax increases, is the next story that you and

everyone else can right going to be that essentially president obama capitulated and republicans got 98% of what they wanted? >> let's wait and see exactly what the details are. i think that's the next story that will be everywhere is how much the democrats have given up. we already know they've given up a lot. the white house is going to i think rely on this idea that this committee, despite the fact that the triggers may not be what they want, but the committee, they're going to argue for next several months that the committee is what should be balanced. that's where they're going to try to -- >> just to clarify this, is this part of the understanding that there will be a special congressional committee appointed to come up with a second round of budget cuts, perhaps less painful than the automatic cuts. all this has yet to be hammered out. "new york times" columnist paul krug again said "republicans have in effect taken america hostage, yet many people in the news media can't bring

themselves to acknowledge this. is there a sense that there's a false balance in these reports because we're kind of allergic to saying one side is to blame, one side is not largely to blame. >> i can't speak for all reporters. i know in my own reporting i've tried to avoid this both sides are dug in because i don't think it helps viewers understand what's really going on. it's kind of lazy. i'd rather say republicans have just walked away with the negotiations or the president is now asking for $4 billion more in cuts and republicans say he is moving the goal post. i think that helps people a lot more than just this sort of generic, nobody is willing to move. >> howie, i think in the last few days that rap has become especially unfair given what's happened in the house. reporting reflected the reality that boehner was getting a hard time getting these house conservatives to agree to any

deal whatsoever. i think it's been clear that that was, at least, in the last 72 hours, a sticking point. >> i think we sometimes are guilty of a short-term lens which is understandable. here the country is on the bring of default. the only question everybody in the world wants to know is are we going to avert this? it becomes important. if you look at the lens of the last six months, there is no question that president obama has moved much further toward the gop position, given up tax increases, remember the corporate jet owners and the loopholes. i wonder why the journalists are afraid of being branded excessively partisan if they don't spread the blame around. >> i think that's a fair question. i think in the pft few days the coverage has reflected the reality on the ground that it was the house gop that was sort of the last thing standing between a deal. >> let's remember, the assessment stories, the stories, once a deal is finalize, i think there will be a series of

stories that will look back and try to figure out that question. i think it's fair to judge the press once some of those are done. >> right. but, of course, this is when the journalism really counts because this is when the deal is getting done. briefly, have reporters given obama and the white house a pass on not writing down whatever they say their proposal is? this has been a big republican complaint. >> i don't think that that -- i think that criticism from the republicans about the white house has been amply duly reported. i think the reporters have been smart and good in pushing back little bit in saying that some of the republican criticism has been sort of hyperbolic in that regard and there actually are plans written down. >> let me get a break. when we come back, the tea party members who keep saying no. are journalists giving them a fair shake? [ jelani ] neither of my parents went to college.

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of the republican party that is at the heart of this impasse, why john boehner had such difficulty in getting anything through the house. jonathan martin, in all candor, how well do journalists understand these tea party members who keep saying no to everything? >> i think they're getting to know them better. you have a lot of freshmen who were political outsiders, not known at all by the washington press corps. i think it has taken a period of time. i think you've seen great reporting, thinking about the south carolina delegation that all voted against the bill. but it has taken some time. there's no question about it. but i think it's similar to the 94 class. at first there was uncertainty about who these folks are and what are they after. >> i think it's more than unfamiliarity. nancy cordes, they're often portrayed as being blinded by ideology. they don't see it that way. they see it that they were

elected to bring in out-of-control spending, crazy government. >> right. they see congress is never going to do anything unless they hold both democrats and republicans' feet to the fire. they say call me whatever you want, call me a radical, an extremist, but i came here to do one thing and one thing only. and so there are no -- there's nothing you can offer me that's going to change my vote. you can't offer me a committee position or help with my campaign because i don't care about any of that stuff. >> i think we're also steeped in the capital tradition of horse trading, we don't fully understand people who want to do horse trading. on the other hand, when some of these tea party members belittle the consequences of a default when even when conservative economists say it will wreck if economy, lau do you portray that as being reality? >> as jonathan said in the last 72 hours, maybe the last week,

this incredible split between this faction of the republican party and the mainstream republican party. whether it's other mainstream members or commentators or the like, that's the thing we've all been writing about. i think that's a totally legitimate thing. if you're part of a faction of a party, i think it's legitimate to write about that effort. >> without wanting to insult these people, they were elected by their districts and entitled to do anything they want and they have moved the debate. if they take the position that a default is no big deal, not that the government couldn't get by for a week, but for months, that's a crazy position. >> but it's not for us to declare something crazy, right? >> i shouldn't have said crazy. is it not out of line with what most responsible experts believe? >> our journalism is based on the assumption there's a shared set of facts we agree on. when you have some members of congress who don't believe in

those same set of facts, it's a serious challenge for us to cover. >> the interesting thing is it does hurt their credibility when actually they have a very credible case to make, that we do need to cut spending or we will get downgraded. that is a very responsible position. but when you add it to some of these other claims, it kind of dilutes some of their -- >> when the "wall street journal" editorial page is criticizing -- that tells how much the debate has moved. thanks very much for stopping by. coming up in the second part of "reliable sources," chris ye chrystia friel land on whether it's obscured the threat to the economy. jeff jarvis ignited a twitter storm in washington with the use of one dirty word. ♪ you are my sunshine

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if you like politics, the debt crisis has been one heck of a story. boehner versus his own tea party

faction. duelling news conferences, default day this tuesday. what about the real world economic impact of this beltway gridlock on business, on wall street, ordinary americans? has that got sten lost or obscured in the cacophony. joining us chrystia freed la la from reuters. >> thanks, howie. >> have washington reporters gotten caught up in the effort to gain the politics here, that the economic impact, even if there's no default, has been kind of lost? >> the short answer is yes. i say that with deep respect for washington reporting. i think the actual ins and outs of these negotiations have been covered extremely well by very, very hard working journalists. i think if you pull back a little bit -- maybe the onus is less on the washington press corps and more on the ed torsz -- the underlying economic

reality and not just the impact of these debt ceiling debates on the economy, but more broadly, the fact that unemployment is still above 9%, i don't think we look at that enough. i think that's mostly because the horse race of politics, that's easy journalism. ae were were hearing from your panel before, the aides, they can't wait to talk to you. it's a lot harder to understand what's happening in the economy and make it come alive. >> since you mentioned the jobs question, i was going to come to that in a couple moments, i watched this incredible obsessive focus of all the news because because understandably want to know is there going to be a deal or is the united states government going to default instead? at the same time, 14 million americans are out of work. why has that problem largely, i say largely, slipped off the media radar screen? >> i think mostly because we cover what is right before our eyes. we cover a deadline for a

journalist, as you know, is something we love and we're built for. >> adrenaline. >> also, i think part of it is, the debt ceiling debate is something that's being fought by people who journalists talk to all the time. joblessness is happening in this country outside the coasts, outside the places where journalists gather. part of what's happening is there are two americas, journalists belong to elite america, not main street america where i agree with you, joblessness is the number one issue. >> also a slow motion crisis, and it's been with us for well over a couple years. a lot of people out of work in the long-term. i just wish we invested more energy in telling that story, people who worked their whole lives and now are unable to find work. also it seems to me because we're driven by deadlines, as you say, there's kind of a, well, will they make it or not make it?

the idea if they do this before midnight on tuesday somehow it's a victory. yet the credit rating agencies could still downgrade the u.s. debt and there still could be an impact on the economy of all this churning uncertainty. would you agree with that? >> absolutely. there could be a deal which still leaves the underlying economic problems unresolved. actually there could be a deal which makes those underlying economic problems worse by cutting government spending and further slowing economic growth. so i think you're absolutely right there. i do think, you know, our choices about what to cover, they have consequences, too. one of the consequences of the debt ceiling debate has been really to shift the political focus, not just of washington, but america as a whole to cutting spending, to the deficit as being the number one problem. i think there's an argument to make that america's number win economic problem is unemployment. reading the newspapers, watching

tv, you wouldn't draw that conclusion. >> you would have no idea if you just landed here from another planet that this -- obviously they're related in the sense that out of control spending and no debt deal hurts the economy, but it seems like the media focus is completely off the question of unemployment. i touched on this earlier. when we see these, the boehner plan, the reid plan, maybe $3 trillion in spending cutbacks, according to the latest iterations, no closing of the corporate loopholes that barack obama has raled against, it seems like we don't really have the details and we're shying away from talking about the impact of what that kind of spending contraction would be on the economy and ordinary americans. >> yes, i think that's absolutely right. one of the points you made in your earlier panel was quoting paul krugman's scathing indictment of journalism saying journalists rely on a he

said/she said paradigm and are reluctant to try to establish some facts. i think overall that was a fair criticism, and i think in covering this debate, we have to be a lot clearer on -- when it comes to spending, what the short-term consequences of austerity would be. one way to do that which is fact-based, nonpartisan, would be to look at country that is have been doing that already. britain is a terrific example. the government there has been cutting spending very, very sharply, and the result in the short term has been extreme contraction of the economy. >> but if you buy the paul krugman analysis, do you also agree with his point that this whole mess -- i can't think of a better word -- this whole mess has been portrayed as a bunch of immature, squabbling narrow minded politicians who can't get in the room and agree when the alternative analysis and certainly one krugman embraces, is it's the republicans and particularly the tea party faction that has been

intransigent, has said no to trillions in spending cuts and the democrats and obama have moved quite a ways towards the gop position? >> i think that conclusion, that actually the terms of the debate have shifted far to the right is objectively the case. what's interesting to me, and we already saw it on the front page of "the new york times" today and this was alluded to in your panel, people are now saying, okay, in the post mortem phase, we're going to talk about how obama shifted pretty far to the right, that's a little bit too late. the decisions will have have been taken. >> briefly, why has mainstream journalism not portrayed this atds a crisis largely created by one party and instead has developed the narrative that two sides are a bunch of clowns? >> because i think mainstream journalism is averse to making judgments. i also think mainstream journalists are particularly scared of being labeled as liberal. we want to be seen as objective.

i think sometimes there's a little of bending over objective to be scene as objective. >> chris yeah freeland, thank you so much for joining us from new york. up next, jeff jarvis on the f bomb that lit the fuse. every day, all around the world, energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy developement comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing decades of cleaner burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources

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it began on fwiter with what's called a hash tag, a topic word that makes it easier for other people to follow messages on the same subject. blogger jeff jarvis channelled one at anger over this debt mess and carried echoes of an earlier outburst by a media personality. >> so i want you to get up now. i want all of you to get up out of your chairs, and i want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it and stick your head out and yell, i'm as mad as hell and i'm not going to take this anymore. >> we can't repeat jarvis's term on the afrmt it starts with an f and ends with washington. he kicked up enough of a fuss online that the networks took notice. >> this past saturday night jeff jarvis had just about enough.

>> we want to show you just one destination on twitter which has a common theme that we can't say or show you on tv because of the language, and which has become a place where people are venting their anger at washington, and there's a lot of it. >> so is twitter becoming a social force, perhaps the new howard beal. joining us is jeff jarvis who directs the center for entrepreneurial journalism at the city university of new york. jeff jarvis, why did you come up with this middle finger salute to washington? >> it was the company know noir talking. i watched the news and got mad. i went to twitter and just said it's our money, our economy, f you washington and people starting responding. so i started to joke and people said no, you should make it a hash tag. and now there are 99,000 tweets with that moniker on them.

>> that is remarkable. why do you think this took off on at which time tore the point it was getting network news coverage? >> i think there is a lot of anger and disappointment in the government and what's going on right now. some people got mad at me and said you should have been spoefk and said to the gop orr congress or whatever. the fact it was a blank slate allowed people to come in and say why they were upset, f you washington for this or for that, for not letting me marry who i want, making my parents worry about whether they can pay their bills. it brought out the anger and disappointment which i think means it brought out the hope of the people, expectations of the people for a better government. >> you think the reason for the resonance is that it didn't get into the we of this faction or this politician is to blame on the debt mess and, in fact, tapped into broader emotions about all the things that people don't like about a dysfunctional government or a government that doesn't do what they want here

in d.c.? >> it wasn't about what i had to say or my opinion, it was a blank slate for people to express their opinions. there were a lot of emotions to come out. what's interesting here, too, is media followed. james carrie from columbia said proper role for journalism is not to form the conversation but to be informed by it. that's what happened here. people have a voice now. we have our guttenberg press in our pocket. >> a real two-way conversation which is the way it should be. the whole idea of people being ticked off, this is the craziest thing i've ever seen, self inflicted crisis that brings us to the brink of default. "the new york times" headline, u.s. sees washington as mad and the capital doesn't argue. "washington post," angst about the future. i feel like the mainstream press is a little slow on this and

that you, among others, got out there early at the fact that people really are mad. >> i think you're absolutely right. they're very slow about it. i take no credit for this. i threw this out after two glasses of wine. it's the response that surprised me. it really took off. i think that's something to listen to there. twitter is an incredible tool to hear what the people are saying. it is the voice of the people, unmediated by us in media or by government or by flacks. that's an incredibly important thing. i want to make very clear that i hardly think this is anything approaching a revolution. it was a weekend lark. it's not tahrir square. every government on earth should be aware now that their people now have a voice. the train crash in china last week and the people on twitter went around the sensors, what's happening in the arab spring. it's all of a piece that the people now have an opportunity to speak to the world. >> what would you have written after three glasses of wine?

>> you don't want to know. >> not on the air probably. look, it was president obama when he asked people to communicate with folks on capitol hill who said send e-mails, tweet. even the white house recognizing the importance of twitter. some people say by using the f word repeatedly that you're being juvenile, taking a really serious subject and reducing it to a dirty word game. >> i think it's appropriate. the reason i fought the fcc on their censorship of the broadcast airwaves is that bs is political speech. there is no better word to describe what goes on in politics than that. it's chilled speech. the phrase itself, of course, it's silly. is it juvenile? sure. guilty. it brings out opinions and anger of the people that obviously aren't getting vented or answered otherwise. i can't believe you can be a member of congress and not be absolutely humiliated and want to hang under a rock somewhere, but they don't. that's what's most amazing to me. >> you noted earlier the way

twitter has become an alternative message delivery system for people like you and ordinary folks who can vent and say what they think and everybody can agree or disagree in debate. appreciate the opportunity to talk to you, jeff jarvis, thanks for joining us. >> thank you howard kurtz. after the break, congressman david wu after his hometown paper investigates the resolution ship with an 18-year-old woman. the reporter who broke the story next. i had a student the other day that said... "miss stacy, this class is changing the way that i look at things." sparking that interest and showing them that math and science are exciting... it's why i teach. ♪ i know they can, even when they think they can't. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles, enters the bloodstream faster

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the story about congressman david wu appeared in "the oregonian" last week. the paper reporting a young woman of 18 left a message at his portland office accusing him of an aggressive unwanted sexual encounter. wu's staff had con fronted him and he acknowledged the encounter but said it was consensual. with wu refusing to comment, how did the portland paper get the story and decide to publish it? joining us, charles pope, the reporter who broke the story and in new york, stephen engel berg, currently the managing ed of pro publica. >> you and your associates broke the story.

unnamed sources. the family wouldn't talk. did that give you any hesitation? >> we had a history or a base of knowledge, both publish and unpublished. and we were very careful because of the explosive nature of the charge and the people involved, especially a young woman that we did not move to publish until we were certain of the facts of the case. >> frustrated by the fact that no one would go on the record? >> sure. that's not the first choice, always. but in a story of this type it's understandable. then you throw in the odd culture of congress where background and off the record is a daily existence. you understand how to maneuver around that and still get certainty. >> you not only have the odd culture of congress, but this unusual history of david wu. we can put up a picture of him in the famous tiger suit. this was a halloween costume he

e. mailed out to colleagues. you gave the congressman four days to comment while you were in the final stages of the story. he declined. what was the trigger? why did you decide to go ahead? >> because while we were approaching him and trying to get some reaction from either him or his staff, at the same time we were developing other information and sources, and at each step getting closer to the certainty we needed. and at that point i sent a note saying yes or no, we're publishing because i play straight and they knew that we were close, and they still declined to comment. >> steve engelberg, in the past you've refused to investigate sexual allegations involving politicians. at "the oregonian" you write yourself you botched the story of bob pack dlooed wood's sexual advances even though one of his victims was a reporter for "the oregonian." now you're a reluctant convert to these kind of stories. explain why. >> i think at some point you

have to acknowledge what history is showing us which is that politicians will behave badly, they will lie about it under oath. as much as myself as a member of the watergate generation of reporters wants to be investigating grand constitutional threats, we have to acknowledge that this, too, is a story and it's relevant to voteers and goes to the characters of the people who are doing the public's business. >> did you conclude you had been wrong earlier to either minimize or in some cases just turn away from allegations involving the sex or sexual high jinx and some public figures or members of congress? >> i should point out i was not at "the oregonian" during the packwood thing. i think has time has gone forward, it's become clear that you have to at least listen and investigate these things. whether or not you ultimately publish them as charlie points out is a very difficult decision. but i don't think that you can take the position, as i took with my colleagues in the early '90s on bill clinton, look, we're "the new york times," we do financial investigations, we

don't do sex. >> i should have made clear that it was "the oregonian," not you personally that botched the packwood story in '92 and ended up being beaten by "the washington post." charles pope, you say the young woman in question is the daughter of wu's long-time friend and campaign donor. the paper is declining to identify her. she hasn't filed a complaint, hasn't gone to the police. why the decision not to name her? >> that was another question we faced and moved. the decision was that this was a sexual encounter, whether you can define it as a sexual assault or not. did the same general policy apply that we don't identify them. we did talk to the parents and we had some -- developed some knowledge in that way. we just thought that the early stories, that it was the safest and most fair way to approach the story. if later she decides to take another step, it's her choice to

become public. >> you did talk to the young woman's parents even though they chose not to be quoted? >> i did not. my colleague got to the family -- >> can you say whether the parents were opposed to the story being published? >> we did not hear that. they did not tell us that. jane knee had a there was no direct opposition to the story. and we also tried to talk later to them, so there were plenty of opportunities if they -- >> right. reminds me of the situation with the maid in the ds, cak case, n coming forward. when you were at the oregonian, you had some involvement with david wu. you were having your reporters check an allegation that dates back to 1976 about whether they accosted an ex-gifford at stanfo stanford. they threatened to sue. you decided to publish that story. tell me about that decision. >> it's similar to the story that charlie pursued. first of all, of course, we had

a victim who did not want to cooperate, d did not want her name or story out there. the reporters had to go track this down in a very difficult way. it was really a virtually ungettable story when we started it. but a therapist at stanford university who had counselled the woman in this incident felt that david wu had gotten away with something that he shouldn't get away with. the camps had refused to go into this, refused to discipline him. he ended up going to medical school and then law school as a result of this with a clean record. and this woman, who was dying, felt that she needed to come forward, which she did. when we then went to wu, at first he refused to comment. then he hired a lawyer to harass our sources, threaten us with legal action, and i will never forget the morning the story ran, the phone call -- phone rang from one of charlie's predecessors in washington and it was 7:00 a.m. on the west coast. i thought that's it, wu is suing. and he said no, he's issued a

statement acknowledging the whole thing and apologizing. >> i'm running against a hard break. charles, were you surprised that just days after your story appeared that congressman wu chose to resign? >> yeah, i was. i've been in washington covering congress and the white house for more than 20 years and i know the sort of normal arc of these kinds of stories is not quite as quick as this one, but i think it's a testament to our reporting. not mine alone but the whole team. and that decision coming as quick as it did validates what we did. >> rather than disputing the facts or denouncing the paper, all things politicians sometimes do under fire. charles pope, steve engelberg in new york, thanks for joining us this morning. still to come, abc says no to checkbook journalism. piers morgan still under fire in a tabloid scandal. and a station's triple bogey in cov covering a golf tournament. - exactly. - oh! [ announcer ] we are insurance.

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time for our weekly look at the hits and errors in the news business. for years networks have been paying for big interview. they deny it, saying they're providing licensing fees for photos or videos, but it's a fig

leaf and everyone knows it. abc news has been one of the worst offenders paying casey anthony $200,000 shortly before she was indicted in the murder of her young daughter and $10,000 to $15,000 to meagan broussard, one of her online pals. but this week i learned abc is getting out of the checkbook business under pressure from chris cuomo, who did the interview, the network is banning payments except perhaps in extraordinary circumstance. spokesman ben sherwood says the payments have become a crutch. will other networks follow suit or score more exclusives with abc out of the pay to play game? here's what bothers me about the latest coverage of piers morgan. i don't have a clue if he had knowledge of phone hacking when he was the daily editor. but they've convicted him with very little evidence, such as when he was asked about the nasty down in the gutter stuff in a 2009 interview with bbc radio.

>> morgan says he was just making a general observation about tabloid reporters and private eyes and his comments could be viewed that way. this one is a little more suspicious. a 2006 piece he wrote for "the daily mail" about the breakup of paul mccartney and heather mills. again, someone could have leaked the tape. there's no admission of hacking. we've invited piers morgan on

this program. whether he accepts or not he needs to move past canned statements and sit down for a serious interview on this subject. but the media also have to be careful about rushing to judgment. speaking of which, john snow, an anchor at london's channel 4 tweeted a false rumor this week that cnn had suspended morgan. he retracted it but not before others had retweeted it. and louise mench, the member of parliament, who claimed piers admitted in his book he knew about past phone hacking. she says she's sorry for mangling her facts and morgan accepted her apology. it looked like a standard tv report on a local golf tournament. the footage aired on wpri in providence with eric murphy providing the play by play. talk about a triple bogey. it was all faked. the players were reenacting their shots after the fact, which, as southern rhode island newspapers reported, the station failed to disclose to viewers. news